I re-located to the Eastern part of Nigeria in 2014, from that time till date, I have been opportuned to visit the major (or should I say All) states in the East. In the course of my frequent traversals, I discovered most eastern cities had one particular thing in common. You want to guess??…. Its NEW MARKETS.
From Onitsha to Awka to Enugu to Umuahia to Ebonyi down to Owerri (the city of the beautiful girls *winks*), they usually had a major area and sometimes major bus-stops which they call NEW MARKETS where people come to transact business.
I deciphered a few points from that. First for there to be a New Market, that suggests that there was probably an Old Market. Also, if there was nothing wrong with the Old Market, there will probably not be any need for a new market. Let me guess, the Old market was probably congested, delapidated or is no longer a market.
Away from the Igbos and their markets, what lessons can we garner from my short travel story?
Currently, some industries are red ocean industries; very congested and fiercely competitive.
Take for example, the “Make-up” or say the “Make-up Artist” industry. Now that every lady on my contact list is a Make Up artist or an “Beautification Entrepreneur”, it leaves me in a dilemma IF and when I need to patronize the services of a make up artist for my bride on my soon-to-be-announced wedding day.
I am in the mainstream “freelance” IT industry. Now that these upcoming artsits have “spoilt market” for us, now that a laptop is no longer a luxury and every “Tom, Dick and Ade” can write code or at least use a drag-and-drop software to develop a website that they can offer for as “expensive” as 10,000 naira to anybody willing to pay at least 20% down, What do we do?
What do we do?…
We have two options, we either kit-up and dive into the red-ocean and hustle tooth-and-neck to get our fair share of the pie OR we go the way of the Igbo people, we innovate and explore new markets.
Its a brand new week and its time to explore NEW MARKETS…
#Peace
‘Seun Ogunmola
Your compatriot in the huslte;
I am Seun Ogunmola I help People and Organizations to leverage on Technology to achieve their goals Faster, Easier and Cheaper.
I also write on diverse subject areas including Finance, Business, Productivity and Governance.